Wednesday, May 25, 2011

With all due respect to Shakespeare ...

... the more pertinent question is "How ought we live?" That's the question all us political philosophers like to debate.

Today I'm thinking about the current talking-heads noise over Paul Ryan's budget plan and it's implications to Medicare. Lots of opinions on that these past couple of weeks. So I come to the question (of the day): do you want to live in a society that takes care of its people, or just leaves them to their own devices? Although I love political debate and welcome all comments, I ask only that you look inside yourself for the answers. Do we want a government that ignores those less fortunate than us? (In this instance that would refer to those that would have no access to health insurance if Medicare became a voucher system.)

Never being one to keep my opinion to myself ... the idea of "each man for himself" makes me think of corrupt countries with corrupt dictators who show no mercy to those who are unable to take care of themselves. Those dictators do not care if their fellow countrymen are suffering as long as they can continue to be in power and live in the lap of luxury. Besides - seems to me that the good ol' U.S. of A. will come in and provide for the suffering. So why are we against helping our own?

Is the system broken? Hell yes. Any system that has been around long enough gets its share of bad apples. But it seems to me that saying we should turn it into a voucher system does nothing to fix the "brokenness"; it's kind of like saying we should all be in jail because some people commit crimes. Maybe if we had socialized medicine ....... just saying.